now, it started off rough, but 2008 was a mighty big year for joe biden just as big as it had in the administration, biden by biden's standards kept relatively quiet. rather than being out this the front of the cameras he relished a role as being the last person in the room with the president, but while biden was keeping quiet, canter was making noise. he convinced boehner that if the party could not win, they could refuse to cooperate. they passed a bill in 2009, but it was without a single republican vote in the house of representatives. biden was gaining power by whispering in the president's ear, and canter was getting power by shouting in the president's face. symbolically, of course. >> i will keep talking to eric cantor and some day, sooner or

later, he is going to say obama had a good idea. >> but what we know is that canter was not interested in finding common ground with the president, but interested in remaking the republican party. as a leader of the so-called "young guns" on the hill, canter was recruiting like-minded candidates for the midterms. he called them, coached them and answered the text messages and raised lots and lots of money tor them and through his pac in 2010, canter donated $657,000 to soon to be new members of the house, and he helped to raise millions more for their campaigns, and when the 112th congress was seated with 87 gop freshmen, eric canter had a lot of new allies. his party was in the majority and he was not the whip anymore, but the leader with influence rivalling john boehner's. for his part, joe biden increasingly became president obama's go-to fix it man with a

hand from iraq to afghanistan to the new banking regulations to the auto bailout, and he is now regarded by some as the most influential vice president ever, and the last up with was dick cheney which is why the key moment in the end of the grand bargain was not a meeting between the president and the speaker, it was in 2011 when eric canter walked out of vice president biden's talks. the lieutenants were empower and the strategy was all in the rooks which is why this week, there we were again on the brink walking up to the cliff and peering over and collectively w wondering what would happen next. in the 11th hour, vice president joe biden was called to the hill to find a deal with mitch mcconnell, and why was the deal shaky? because of one message, canter is a no. the lieutenant broke with the speaker and brought along

another 150 members of the house the vote no on the deal compared to the 84 republicans who voted for boehner to vote for it. biden has won this round on behalf of the administration, but lieutenant canter has made it clear, he plans to keep the battle ranging at the table with many, editor-in-chief of reason magazine matt welsh and president and vice president is carmen wong ulrich, and i'm excited to welcome to nerdland fresh off of the swearing in not 48 hours ago, the representative from arizona's ninth district kirsten cinema. >> thank you. glad to be here. >> you have been in the congress for all of 48 hours do. you have it fixed yet? >> no, but by monday. give me the weekend. >> another few minutes. and seriously, the first thing that the 113th has managed to do is to vote on the leadership and the sandy bill, but you all are

coming in on the backend obviously of the fiscal cliff negotiations. who is really empower ed in thi congress? >> well, i think that we saw clearly that representative canter holds heavy sway over a significant portion of the caucus, but as we saw in the vote that happened on thursday, speaker boehner maintains the loyalty of the majority of the members of the caucus, but we won't see that struggle end. i think that the struggle will continue. and frankly, from someone sitting on the other side of the aisle, we all as democratic freshmen were surprised in wonderment as we watched it, because it seemed like a lack of strength in unity and it is continuing to be fracture rouse and it will cause problems for them as we move forward. >> yes, jamal. if we look at what elected john boehner no the speaker position, it was not a unanimous vote, and

even some votes cast there for all alan west. >> that is my favorite vote. >> and yes, david walker got one in there. >> and colin powell got one. >> yes. and what does that tell us about where boehner is in terms of the leadership, and the power? >> look, he is in a tough spot, and we have known that since the last round of negotiations that he went through with the president. he didn't seem like he had that long of a leash from the caucus to cut a deal that maybe the republicans would not like 100% of the deal, but get a lot of what they wanted done. now they are in a worse spot, and it is interesting that president obama can talk about lincoln and other stuff later, but he had a team of rivals around him he assembled from hillary clinton and others around him, but it is like boehner is surrounded by rivals, and he has all of the people like rival canter who want power over him, and they are vying for the power in the caucus.

he does not seem like he has a hold over it, and it is going to be interesting how long he can stay in the job and be effective. >> yes it is very different, because we have a vision of putting biden and canter together. and biden, he loves president obama, right. you have a strong sense of him h being on the president's side and much less so for canter, but i wonder about insights into that, matt, about how he built mower. one of the favorite quotes of mine about canter is that he returned the text messages of these new freshmen, so there is a language in the new york magazine, i can text canter and get a response within minutes and i don't know boehner's cell phone number. this is in 2010. is there unlike anything that we have seen for boehner's lack to build a party. >> well, there is a grass root idea to cut the size of government, but the people who

hold the power don't want to run on that, because they believe they will lose elections, so there is not any legislative or intellectual groundwork for cutting government. they say we want to cut government and not tell you why, and they are scared to. that is the john boehner side and the canter side, there is a new rumpway, the people who are e behind the challenge to boehner and the post ron paul people who came in and they say, we are libertarians and not c conservatives. we don't care, and we are willing to embrace disorder and break ranks, because we want to do what republicans have been too scared to do. sos as that breaks, we will see boehner in an untenable position, and will canter tenor them or will ryan? at the end of the day, vis-a-vis, ryan votes yes. he voted yes for t.a.r.p. and the bailout and all of the things that the libertarian and the kconservatives hate, he is

voting yes on, because he is seeing the future as being the statesman who has the back ground in a limited government. >> and the thing about ryan, he is the coalition of the rational. he comes across as, look, i'm willing to be a grown-up in the tough moments. i have wacky ideas about medicare, but when it comes down to governing, i want to be a part of the process. >> but the naive hypothesis was that the congressmen vote yes, but the fact is that for most of the time the congressmen did vote yes and the fact that it did not come to the floor unless there was a majority vote. this is what we saw with boehner who brought something to the floor that did not get a ma r jer joy of the to caucus vote. >> and you show how it is a generational shift, and you mentioned grown-up and texts messages and we have a bunch of young bucks here who want to go in and make some moves and waves and senator rubio is this, sometimes lack of knowledge or research saying he voted against this because of the tax moves, because it will hurt small

business, but the majority of the small businesses in this country do not make close to $40000,000. it absolutely does not. is this a lack of experience or lack of knowledge or saying that i want to take a different stance. >> that is to matt's point, there may not be an ideological structure beneath this. >> and when we come back, we want to talk about some of the things that have happened since the 113th have convened. the sap ndy relief bill.

late friday morning the house passed a bill providing $9.7 billion for super storm sandy victims.

that is hard to say. speaker boehner delayed the vote from tuesday night which yielded a high profile rebuke best summed nup in two words, governr christie mad. >> there is one group to blame for the continuing suffer iing these victims the house majority and their speaker john boehner. i called the speaker four times last night at 11:20, and he did not take my calls. i won't get into the specifics of what i discussed with john boehner today, but what i will tell you is that there is no reason for me to believe anything that they tell me. on a political chessboard of internal palace intrigue, our people were played as a pawn. >> so here again, a split between john boehner and the lieutenant john canter. and of all places, it was reported that boehner pushed off the vote while canter wanted it

to be passed before the congress ended. and according the breitbart, the original vote was cancelled because of boehner not voting for the fiscal deal. i would love to sit here and beat up on boehner, but spite does not sound right to me, because there has to be a strategy occurring in the moment. >> is there strategy? i'm not sure. >> well, everybody is like, no, no, no. >> it is not. >> interest of the better nature. >> well, not just better nature, but a more strategic one and it is not giving it to peter king or getting yourself yelled by chris christie on tv is in fact bad for eric canter per se, except we know that he did not want to put out money for the irene hurricane victims earlier. >> well, i see in chris christie, and what you see is

something very, very clear, no republican is going to pay a cost with the american people for going against the republican congress. chris christie has decided that he will stand up against the whack-a-doodles in washington. >> that helps him a lot. he took this opportunity to say that i'm not like these crazy people, and i'm like you, and he knows it is a wise move the make, because the next four years out, he knows that -- >> i'm against the president and against -- >> yes, exactly. >> and the bill that in the early form was $60 billion and twice the new jersey state budget. so, yes, it is an interesting political move and st. kris chr is funny when he is on your side, but he is trying to get the maximum dollar are the washington like every governor in the wake of a hurricane. >> and every governor does it. this is what is bizarre to me about being a louisianian living under bobby jindal, and this is the point about the strategy, that it should be that we can

expect certain things, the the governors need to bring home as much federal money as they k but then you end up with people so ideological opposed to it in the case of these people standing up against affordable health care relief, that they turn it around. >> well, these are individuals who are not suffering themselves. >> well, they are not living in the affected areas. >> no, it is not what i said. they are individuals who are not suffering themselves. they are from constituents who are suffering, but i was proud to vote yes. first substantive vote, but it is 1/6 of what it should have been, because the amount of money pass ed ed in that appropriation yesterday is enough to cover a couple of the blocks of solving the problem. it does not solve the problem, so my point is that the folks who voted no weren't suffering. those are the individuals who lost their homes.

>> i want to be clear as you point out, that this is a much smaller bill, and we will go back again to see if there is a second or third appropriation even, but when you look at who voted, you have 192 members of the house coalition voting yes for sandy relief, and still 66 republicans in the house voting against it. >> including the entire delegation from my state. we don't have hurricanes in arizona, but we have federal disasters and we need it when it happens in our state. >> and people have been told that bills like this are the reasons that we are running trillion dollar deficits, but they are not. wars and the tax cuts are where the money is, but they have been telling each other this is where you go to get the cash, the foreign affairs and all of the little thing, so now they are caught, but they don't have the ideological room to do something productive for the country. >> ten years ago we did not pay

for the huge local disasters like this, and it was through the federal government. that changed through hurricane andrew, in florida and now it is a plank check situation. things are larded into the bills that have nothing to do with the hurricane relief. there are people in washington who have an ideological belief that it is the wrong way to deal with the di ssasters, but howev they have not presented an alternative scenario or been credible to cut government so it is big and make a principled case. while republicans are in that zone, there is a lot of moments like that, where they seem to be monsters on the wrong side of it. >> i love the language of a rhetorical cul-de-sac, and there is another one they are stuck in which is ending the violence against women. you would think this the easiest thing to pass even in a divided

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with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership. the news out of india this week was sobering. five suspects have been charged with the brutal rape and murder off a 23-year-old woman on a bus. the men who had been drinking beat the woman with iron bars and rapeded her and threw her out of the moving bus. the crime sparked mass protests in india and many of them led by men calling for a change of attitude toward women and new law laws for violence against women. prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the men charged. and while we gasp in horror, we need to realize that this is not a different country problem, we have problems right here in

america. in ohio, two boys are accused of raping a young 16-year-old girl, and to make it worse, there is a video online of the young men laughing about the rape. we won't show you that, but we will show you the headlines that the 112th congress allowed the violence against women act to expire. and who has been handling the negotiations, none other than the lieutenants themselves. it was joe biden who led the passage of vawa, and for 18 years the bill had no problem to be reauthorized in a bipartisan power, but eric canter says he has a problem because of the indigenous tribal lands, and even with the growing support of the house senate, congress refused to take up to vote.

kopgwoman, y congresswoman, you are a member of the diverse women, and there are pictures of the women standing there on the steps of the capitol, and can the war against women finally begin to be wrapped up in the 113th? can you get vawa through? >> well, i hope we can. melissa, this is a personal issue for me, and before i was in politics i was a social worker. my first job was as a rape counselor at a crisis shelter so this is an issue that mattered for me my entire life, and the fact that the 112th let vawa expire, it does not mean they are just opposed to the protections, but it means that hundreds of millions off women are living now without the p protections there. are 161 women in congress, and we have a handful on the republican side as well. there is a chance to build a coalition and communicate to the broers this on the aisle how important to pass this

legislation. there is not a single piece of ideology about it. all women deserve protection from abuse, and that is all that the legislation says. i do think that the new congress being more diverse and more communities of color, we have an opportunity to help get this forward, but what it will take is a concerted effort not just from the democratic women, but we need republican women to stand up to help us to push it through. >> you said not ideological, but there are a lot of politics engaged here. >> what is sad and horrifying to me is that you have a group of men saying it is political s simply because it has something to do with minority communities, undocumented immigrants, lgbt, and the indigenous american, and what is plit can't that? these are human beings. if you look at the female farm workers undocumented and the situations they are in, and the fear of deportation is so similar to what is going on in india right now, and if you look at the fact that there is no

protection, and what is the difference between us and that? that is too big of a deal to not even put it through for one more minute, because every minute we spend talking about this, somebody is going to be assaulted who cannot report it. >> and carmen, i don't want the viewers to miss it, because we talked about the fiscal cliff so much, and it is not really a cliff, as my colleague says, because you can go right over it, and everything is fine, but there is a vawa cliff, and we are on the other side, and its has expired and this issue of undocumented workers who show up to report their situation of violence, they won't report, right? these are real situations. >> yes, it is sometimes the people who are doing the assault are the people who have hired them. >> yes, it the goal to keep the existing law on the books. this is going to be deeply

unpopular on the nerdland twitter feed. >> well, the senate could have voted for the house version. >> the senate could have voted for the existing law to be on the books and it would be there. and there is a new york times article in april that was called "seeing advantage of the contraception battle ", the democrats are putting the republicans on the defensive of the violence against women act." a senator from alabama said, i have supported this law from the beginning and it seems like the changes are being made exactly to try to attract opposition. it is expanding pathways for immigration or illegal immigrants which republicans go crazy and expanding same sex couples so it was politicized and seen as an opportunity for democrats to keep pushing the republicans in the war against women. >> this is the argument and we called canter's office and had multiple conversations, but this is the main argument, you cannot

complain to us that the existing vawa did not get passed, because there was an existing one that the senate could have voted on it, and they are the ones who politicized it. >> look, we have to pass the violence against women act. it is ridiculous if itt does not happen, and also, we don't spend snuff time talking about the young boys and how we have to educate the young boys about their sexual responsibility, and there has to be more discussion of that in the country, and the third part of this is that the politicians are losing elections by double digits, and is this where you want the draw the line in the sand. for a party to find the way out of of the wilderness and back into the mainstream of life, they continue to make decisions to the outside where most common sense americans are democrat and republican. >> and this is what is tricky about it. we are fine with the current vawa, and we don't want to expand it. there is a problem there, because you are saying that some women are better than some

women. but a woman being sexually assaulted or raped is a woman period. whether she is a tourist from france or undocumented worker being abused by her boyfriend or a person who lives on the tribal land, she is being assaulted. >> so what happens is that you will get a temporary visa so that you can prosecute -- >> sometimes. >> but it has only happened one time, so it is only part of the bill. >> and we will up immigration in the next hour. before the break, i want to give you a update because last saturday in the open letter i wrote to bev perdue asking her to right a historical wrong to pardon the wilmington 10 before she left office. on monday, she did that. it was not my letter, and it was undoubtedly the work of so many people in the state of north carolina, but governor perdue

granted pardons and innocence to the nine black men and one white woman who were accused of fire bombing a grocery store and we in nerdland applaud her actions. so i have another letter and this time going to virginia and 40 years after roe v. wade and we are losing ground on rep reproductive rights, and maybe we can get a break this week. when we come back. calcium-rich tums starts working so fast you'll forget you had heartburn. ♪ tum tum tum tum tums

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campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. maybe you want to incorporate a business. or protect your family with a will or living trust. and you'd like the help of an attorney. at legalzoom a legal plan attorney is available in most states with every personalized document to answer questions. get started at legalzoom.com today. and now you're protected. just three days shy of closing the calendar on 2012 virginia governor bob mcdonnell offered a parting shot against women's reproductive rights, quietly and with no public announcement, he certified new regulations that could result in the closure of abortion clinics in the state of west virginia. this is where we find ourselves as we approach the 40th anniversary of the supreme court's landmark roe v. wade decision. as lawmakers chip away at the

affirmation that a woman has the right to control her own body, but we also find ourselves witnessing vocal and impassioned effects to resist that as well. so this year as we near the anniversary, and the seemingly inevitable challenge to the supreme court's roe v. wade, i want to to send a letter to the virginia executive director. it is me, melissa. i hope in 2013 you get a chance to relax, because 2012 was a busy year for you. it was only march when governor mcdonnell forsigned a law to fo women to have an ultrasound. but thanks to you, the republican legislators in

virginia can never again claim ignorance about the phrase vaginal probe. but more importantly, you put the lawmakers in other states on notice that we will not stand idly while they mandate invasive medical procedures for women. after all that, you deserve a moment to catch your breath, but you will not get it, because governor mcdonnell is at it again. he knew that you and the virginia pro choice advocates would make a lot of fanfare if he brought up more legislation, but he did it quietly. and now abortion clinics have to make costly renovations, which have nothing to do with the s e safety of the clients, but have everything to do with forcing them out of business. so tarina, this is why you are a critical line of defense for reproductive justice. while the opponents attempt a killing blow to roe v. wade in the supreme court, they are

delivering the death by a 1,000 tiny cuts with restrictive state laws, and the slow erosion of reproductive rights left us with the conclusion that was reached by the cover of the "time" magazine's cover is that getting an abortion in america today is ha harder than at any point when it became a constitutional right. according to the gut ma toing t there is the most difficult restrictions passed. take heart though, because a year in which record 92 abortion restrictions were enacted, but the difference of the numbers are due in part because of people like you who stood against the restrictive laws and stood for reproductive rights and put it on the political forefront of the election last year.

that is what i want you to remember as we near the milestone in the defense of women's rights. yes, the ability to fight for those rights is more difficult than it was a decade ago, but stand your ground and continue to push to lay more ground for reproductive rights. let us not just block more restrictive laws, but look for expanding the policy that expands and improves reproductive rights. so next year we will reflect on 2013 and 1973 in the years that women made history. sincerely, melissa. the truth about mascara is... it clumps. introducing a revolutionary new mascara. clump crusher...crusher. 200% more volume. zero clumps. new clump crusher from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl.

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leader mitch mcconnell it was not all it was cracked up to be. in a recent op-ed he said, is it a great deal? no, taxes should not be going up at all, and transcendent issue of our time, and the transcendent issue of our time and the spiraling debt seems unaddressed and now that the president has his long sought tax hike on the rich, we can turn our attention to the real problem which is spending. okay. step back and look at the other end of the economic spectrum. were there components of the deal that were positive for low income americans? according to greg kauffman of "the nation" there were no cuts to food stamps or medicare or social security and no child tax credit or earned income tax credit earned for five years. and back to the table, matt

welch, and carmen wong ulrich, and jamal simmons and kerstin semina, new congresswoman of arizona. and so the deal is quite progressive in terms of the taxing, and when we look at the chart, it shows us that it is going to be tiny tax increases for those who make the least, and massive increases for those who make the most? is it a good deal? >> well, sort of. you mentioned the lower income americans, but the middle income and the upper middle income americans dodged a huge bullet and it is not talked about a lot. the amt tax and if that patch had not been put in there permanently, it would be 3 million american, because back when this was built in the '70s if you made $75 a year, you were rich and a family making $100, you were rich and we know that is not the case today, but the amt applies to that, and if not

the case, another 300 million americans would have had to pay $3,800 in taxes and for the rest of us caught in, this it is a real expensive way to get taxed and the fact that it is patched up is a really big deal. >> so some real protections for real americans within this, and there is a victory in that the president said that we have to have people paying their fair share and when we look at the details here, i mean, the fundamental fair share is that we go for the permanent at least 20% on incomes above $400 to $450,000, and that is the big deal that occurs here for the capital gains and dividends right, which is not just income, but wealth. >> if you look hat the broadly and we pull back a little bit, remember a few years ago that we were in the middle of the bank crisis and the entire country came together and bailed out the largest banks in the country, because we thought it was in the best interest of the kun tcount and then remember that the banks gave each other bonuses, so we had money going out to the

wealthy people, and now we are at the place where we are broadening the responsibility in the country so that the people who made the most will have to share some the responsibility in a greater way. if we are going to ask middle income americans and poor americans to have more responsibility and in fixing some of the big problems that we face in the country, we have to ask the wealthy to do it, and that is why this deal is important. >> and matt, i want the talk about the ideological piece that we talked about earlier, because it does feel to me that on the one hand there is the simple reality that the main thing that congress does is to levy taxes, and to the extent it has the power to do that and then the ideological perspective with the minority that says under no circumstances do you raise taxes on anyone ever. does that mean, for that ideological group there is no effective power in the u.s. house? >> well, the ground is shifting. for years for 25 years or more it was don't raise any tax under any circumstances and then you could support tax breaks for giving constituencies, because

you are reducing the tax burden and this has in my view contributed to the horrifying complexity and the corporatization of america. and that view is shifting among people who might vote for republicans sometimes to i don't care about taxes as i do about the spending, and that has not translated yet into many votes to speak of on capitol hill, but it is a real thing and there are people who want to cut government and hold the taxes and people who ran against it like rand paul, and marco rubio, and they said, we can talk about the raising the taxes, and that is fine, but we can do it in a way that we are addressing the long-term entitlement spending and deficit reduction and that is the deficit reduction deal that did not reduce the deficit and entitlement did that did not touch the entitlement, and debt ceiling did that did not talk about the debt ceiling.

what did we do? >> well, congresswoman, the reason i laughed and had to stop in the middle of the mcconnell quote is that the idea that the debt or the so-called spiraling debt is the fundamental pre-eminent issue facing us, and if that is the sort of the line in the sand for the 113th, it sounds like you are going to have a hard time getting these o other things addressed if in fact, the narrative is always going to be about debt and spending in some way. >> well, what we have seen is that most americans do see that debt is a concern, and they may not understand all of the details, but they know in their own lives that when they have debt, they are in trouble, and we have to acknowledge it honestly and that there is a problem and acknowledge that the way to solve it is not just to raise taxes or cut spending. sometimes the republicans will say no new taxes and democrats say no cut in spending. so we have to find a middle ground and do it. what we didn't see from the deal that came out last week is actually making progress towards

those shared goals, but there were some important things that happened. you know, protecting the unemployment insurance for low income folks, and protecting the earned income tax credit is a real factor tor americfor ameri. and we have to figure out how to do it smart. we had a report from the gao office that members went to vegas and spent millions and that is shameful and it needs to stop, and democratss and reps can agree on that, but we have to get past the talking points of just taxes and talk about a comprehensive solution. >> and economic growth. >> and the struggle in fact, does continue. we will be right back. [ male announcer ] how do you make america's favorite recipes?

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remember that whole we oppose ip creakre increases of the republican party? well, don't believe it. because 70% of americans will pay more in taxes, and why? because the holiday season just ended, and i'm not talking about kwanzaa, folks. the taxes on wage earners is going up, and this is it. for whatever else got protected payroll holiday did not, and for most wage earners, it is going to be a slight uptick. >> if you are making $50,000 a year and paying $100 more, you have to plan ahead for that, because it is a big jump, especially for the lower income folks who are not low income enough to not pay more in tax, and you to pay attention to

that, but it was a temporary patch there, and not something permanent so eventually that would have to go back and come back. >> and in some ways, thank goodness. it is going to hurt if you are the family, but on the other hand, it is going to hurt us in a big way if we are not paying into social security and medicare. >> absolutely, and this is almost like a little gift from the government, but went on for so long that it was a gift that we got used to, and now the gift is going away and we have to pay up. it is like the first day back at work after new year's. >> and you were saying before the break, the other way to think about it sufficient revenue is to think about economic growth and not just the taxes versus the spending tradeoff. >> that is right. and in the 1990s when we started to handle the debt, one of the ways we did that is that we had extraordinary growth, and so that the revenues that came in were spent to do that, and what we did on the government side is that we limited the spending so that as the money came in, we didn't go buy a bunch of new stuff, but took the money to pay

down the debt. that is what we have to do, get growth stimulated again and people back to work and spending restraint so that we can apply the money to paying government. >> that is the conversation that we need here, because the fear is that the debt cliff is doing to get loud and a lot of shouting and yelling and it is a distraction because the if we take it back to kitchen table economics, we are basically in some issues of economic crisis and still have 12 million people out of work, and we have to address that. you need a roof over your head and food on the table, and some form of transportation. you can find the money by cutting some spending, but you to make more money, and that you have to do before you can pay the credit card bills or managing the debt. so you have to bring in the growth, and the debt will go away are the that. >> and if we make the kitchen table analogy, it is true that the families don't take food out of the mouths of the elderly or the kids to pay the debt. that is another key example. >> priorities matter. >> and yes, and even if it is the national family. and one of the most pressing

issues on the president's agenda, can he achieve real immigration reform? and 150 years after the emancipation proclamation, a lesson on the true impact of the historic document. more nerdland at the top the hour.

welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time, and that is a refrain that we often heard from then-senator barack obama while he was making the first white house run in 2008, and the first week of 2013 bore it out. as the white house and the rest of washington were scrambling to limit the fiscal cliff damage, president obama once again used the executive power to get something done on immigration policy. according to the washington post, the rule set to go into

effect march 4th will allowed qualified relatives of citizens who are undocumented, excuse me, americans who are undocumented to apply for a provisional unlawful presence waiver before leaving the united states to obtain their visas. so that the change is a big deal for families and basically, you have a situation where if you were an undocumented family member and you left to go get a visa, it could take as much as ten years of separation from the family while you were in the native country applying for the visa, but now the family members will face a shorter wait outside of the united states. the president did not do this without a push. back in december, the democratic congressman luis gutierrez told us that administrative stopping the deportations of spouses and citizen s is an urgent matter that can be a catalyst for the permanent legislative reform,

but will it be? of all of the priorities we heard, immigration reform tops the list largely because he did notl leive up to the ambitious goal to do something about it, and late in the term, he lived up to it. >> when we talked about immigration reform in the first year, and that is before the economy was on the verge of collapse, and what i confess i did not expect, and so i'm happy to take responsibility for being naive here is that republicans who had previously supported co comprehensive immigration reform, my opponent in 2008 who had been a champion of it and who attended these meetings suddenly would walk away. that is what i did not anticipate. >> so, can he expect them to do the same thing this time? the new congress is days' old, and we are waiting to see if the republicans are up to the obstructionist ways. joining me to dig into the ways are the aforementioned investigative reporter seth and

carmen wong ulrich, and jamal simmons and newly elected congresswom congresswoman symanon. >> well, republicans have said the same thing, and there are a group of people who are congresspeople spending time right now and according to the aides spent time over the holidays thinking about what a bill would look like crafting a bill. we have yet to see what a bill might look like. absolutely, we are looking at a scene right now that makes it look very difficult to get anything, anything progressive certainly passed. now, you know, the reality is that both parties here are starting from in the red on immigration reform. the republican party has consistently blocked everything,

and immigration reform, and the dream act and talked about, romney talked about self-deportation during the elections. but you know, the democrats on the same day that this announcement was made about parents and spouses, and i mean, weeks before that announcement was made, numbers came out about the new deportation numbers, and what we are seeing is that historic numbers of deportation in the last year 409,000 people were deported from the united states and i got that data from a freedom of information act request that showed in over four years over 200,000 parents of u.s. citizen children were deported. this is the scene that we are talking about. the pressure is really on. >> and another aspect to the pressure being on, right, carmen, because part of what puts the pressure on has to do

with what happened demographically in this election cycle, right? so when we look at what happened in 2012 we see that the latina and asian voters gave their support to president obama over mitt romney in the enormous numbers, but this part of the coalition did not come for fun, because there were huge issues on the agenda. >> huge issues. people separated and grown up and born in the country and sending the parents to another country that they don't know and they won't take the kids with them, because they want the education here. to hear anything, and i hope that we won't get to the point here is the jobs talk. this is all about jobs and taking away american jobs. absolutely not. we are basically talking about people who do not compete with almost any segment of american population, because it is high school or a less high school education, and most americans who have less than a high school education take jobs that require

service, phone service, cashier, interactive language that you have growing up, and so we have a group of people doing the jobs that we are on the back of by the way to open up the restaurants and afford the pay the bills in the restaurants, because we have people working this the back that make less. so we have to acknowledge that dog something about the millions of people helps the country and the economy. in university of california davis showed that on average, we are all helped, our incomes year after year by thousands off dollar dollars in the last estimate found $5,000, our income goes up simply because the economy is built on this labor. >> yes, and this is to me such a key point, jale ma, th lmal thao pull in here. when you talk about the anchor babies, it is a lie. because you don't get in fact anchored to the country, but the other fact is the economic

piece, and the idea that it is not competitive and the very basis and many of the low wage jobs taken by undocumented workers takes away from the profitability of the nation. >> well, stwroe ta shg, we have people at the low end of the wage scale are facing pressure because of the labor. so they have a radical perspective to be suspicious about this, but when you talk to e people about the fairness, this is when the african-american groups may break on the side of more immigration, because they don't want a situation of people diskrim named against because of what they look like and sound like and come from and that is where the african-americans side. and for people who are wealthy, we absolutely want immigration, because it helps the bottom line, but there is some tension at the lower end. >> and much smaller portion. >> and what is interesting,

congresswoman, is that the president in the two cases and the deferred actions that we will talk about in a minute, and the question of the parental and the family question, the president has had to take action, because the congress who didn't have ma r r erer jo i tj congress did not have the majority. >> well, you have to secure the borders and tell difference of the bad guys and the good guys and the bad guys are the drug run runners and the drug runners and the good guys want to come to the country and do good. we have to adjust the quota system to meet the market dem d demands, but the truth is that we have never been able to meet the job demands of the country without labor from outside of the country, and including many of our own ancestors. so i my family emigrated to this country for work several jep rations ago, and so that is number two. we need a market-based immigration system, and the

third thing that we have to do to help the folks in the shadow come out of the shadows and the families and these kids, the dre dreamers are the people we are talking about, and these mixed families where some people have papers and some don't, a lot of the young people don't realize until they are 16, 17, 18 years old that they can't join the military or go to college. >> and they also end up in foster homes. this is what is so horrifying. and can you imagine being 10 years old and placed in a foster home with strangers and not seeing a parent for a couple of years. >> because your mom was pibcked up at a immigration checkpoint on the way to pick you up from school. >> i met dozens of parents inside of the immigration detention centers when i reported on this precise question what happens to the children of the parent, and the children are losing touch with their kids, and the kids are taken out of the families and stuck in foster homes. 200,000 parents is a colossal numbers and the collateral

effects of that are going to ripple outward. immigration reoform, and comprehensive immigration reform is talked about a three-pronged thing, legalization, and for fixing folks who are undocumented and creating a pathway for people who want to come here to come here and enforcement, but those are broad buckets. what is most important and we don't know what that means until we see the language and the space for it, because there could be a regres zi version of the bills that we could see more enforcement, and we could see, we could see a kind of path to legalization that doesn't include citizenship, and the republicans have put forward in november put forward an idea like that for dreamers. so we have to wait and see what the proposals will look like which will start coming out in the coming months. >> we want to take a quick break and as we go out on this break, i want to show you what you did not see here because we were laughing it up with the nerdland

comedy show, but we went to president obama on the "meet the press" where he tells us that immigration is on the top of the priority list. when we come back, we will talk to someone who is going to hold him to that promise. >> i have said that fixing our broken immigration system is a top prior tichlt i will introduce legislation in the first year to get that done. i think that we have talked about it long enough and we know how to fix it, and do it in a comprehensive way, but the american people support is something that we should get done.

now i know that some people want to bypass congress and have me change the laws on my own. [ applause ] believe me -- and believe me

right now dealing with congress the idea -- [ crowd chanting "yes you can" ] >> that was president obama being interrupted in his speech in july of 2011 at the la raza national conference and activists were insisting that the president who could not bypass congress could do just that, bypass congress just by making his own deportation policy and he did just that. in june of last year, the president announced a new policy called deferred action for child arrivals which allows undocumented workers 30 years older or younger to stay in the united states to get a driver's license or work in the united stat states. it has been very popular with more than 300,000 illegal immigrants lining up to pay the $465 fee and file applications. while the president enjoyed political kudos for the action, the idea was not his.

it came from the activists themselves, and the dreamer groups organized 96 legal scholars signing a letter to the white house justifying legal reasons for the president to justify if actions, and they showed him the problem and the viable solution. so what will they come back up next? at the table is matt welsh, and joining us lye from washington, d.c. is janet magea, the organize ore of the la raza organization. >> thank you for having me. >> and when you look at what they did, it is going to seem like they will end up teaching this and all of the sociologists and the political strategists will look at how the organize and a case study in how to get action in the stalled and the divided government. what were the key parts of the movement that can now be applied as we move forward for more

immigration reform? >> well, more than anything else, the fact that it was authentic and organic movement that was created by the dreamers, themselves. and it was quite courageous to see the young people stepping out knowing that they were putting themselves at risk, but saying that they did feel part of this country, and that they were in every which way they knew possible americans except for certificate. o they have been a true source of inspiration and courage and you would be surprised how that can move people. we do know that the polls show that the dreamers have broad suppo support, and what the president has done essentially with his action which is only temporary has brought support among the american people, and it is because they do understand that there's an essential element of justice and fairness when you

are looking at these young people, and the fact that they have been very courageous, and so the fact that it is an authentic movement, and the fact that they have worked in a broad coalition, and that many organizations have been helping to support that, i think that there was a real sense that this is really a fair thing to do. although, i do believe that the administration was quite skittish in wanting to take that action and so it did require pressure on this administration, and to remind the president of the promise that he made, and that in fact, he was empowered to do some of this. >> and there is a kind of lesson here that reminds me of the civil rights movement and the birm birmingham children's mar pch which broke the back of the birmingham massive resistance against civil rights when you started to see the teenagers and the young people and you realized, oh, wait a minute the injustices to youth and families helps to galvanize the american consciousness, but as you pointed out, the biggest piece

of it was showing a pathway to the administration legally of what to do, and when you look at the new action that the president and the administration have taken around families that will take effect in march, and what is after that? if we have younger family members addressed and some families addressed, it seems a lot of hole, and so how does the movement embodied by la raza start to move forward? >> well, obviously, we want to continue to move for the comprehensive immigration reform and have a law passed to deal with this in a permanent way. and the president's action while important step to provide relief to the young people, the dreamer, it is not permanent. we do need comprehensive immigration reform. and we are looking at 1 million

undocument undocumented immigrants who are here illegally. that is going to be challenging. the administration is pushing as much as they can administratively, but we will runt of to administrative options real soon, and that is why there is a sense of urgency around getting comprehensive immigration reform doeb. a real window of opportunity post the election and the opportunity out of hispanics in this election which was quite decisive i think in the result. >> janet, thank you so much for joining us. when we come back, we will talk to some folks at the table about exactly the moment of opportunity that you have suggested there. we have got a congresswoman from arizona at the table, and we will talk about the fact that arizona has been ground zero for immigration reform and what can that mean now for the 113th "king kong." co ng

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and now you're protected. every state in the union is to some degree, a legislative laboratory, and a testing ground for federal laws yet to be born, and it would be hard to argue that any state has tested the waters on immigration policy more than arizona. tempers flaired in 2010 when the infamous, and mostly determined unconstitutional sb-1070 or the papers, please, law, was signed into effect by governor jan brewer. the law instantly became the most stringent anti-immigration measure anywhere in the kun tco. from the outset one of the most outspoken opponents is state representative then kyrsten sinema, and now as newly elected congresswoman for the 113th

congress, she joins us today. >> well, it seems to show everyone what happens when congress fails to act. the fact that arizona has been and will be ground zero for the immigration policy for decades. we have been asking congress to stand up and get to moral courage to do what is right to solve the problem, and when they fail to do so, the arizona legislature took action. it is important to note that i broadly objected this law. but sb-1070 is wildly popular and not because they like the solution, but it is a solution. so the public of arizona is interested in anything that you take. if you give them a good option, they will take the good one over the bad one, but if you give them failed solutions, that i will give it a shot. >> and the possibility, ma mattings, is to do nothing, and there is a libertarian perspective to do the least you

can around immigration, and it is an open borders perspective? >> well, that requires doing something. >> yes. >> and any time that you have tens of millions of people who are breaking a law, and you can look at it as a lawlessness problem which a lot of people do, and especially the republicans when they talk about this, or you can look at it as a prohibition problems and just like the war on drugs is a prohibition problem particularly on marijuana, in many cases the immigration system here is a prohibition issue, and you are only allowing 50,000 workers from mexico a year. >> well, 10,000 unskilled workers per year. >> and 10,000 unskilled workers from mexico and you can find more of those in downy, california, right now, if you go there, so if you were looking at it as a lawlessness problem, you will do the e verify stuff, and make everyone check the papers and break up the families and the terrible things that have happened in the last four years and the last 15 years, and that is what you are are going to do

glad you mentioned this earlier, but expand the number of people who want to come here to work ho legally. that is what they are doing here to work and not the nightmare stories to suck on welfare. so they want to make it easier and make it the front of it. if you stop that sort of number of illegal immigrants growing by illegalizing immigration, then the suddenly, the huge problem will shrink and you don't have to have a comprehensive ideal to go to every issue or the triple fences to be built and all of this. >> and the lawlessness is the story of oalcohol prohibition, and as soon as you changed the law back, and it was repealed prohibition, and becomes public health, but it is not a problem of criminal justice. >> as you said in the break, there is a parallel with the criminal justice system that affects so many families here, and a large amount of which is due to the drug war. it is breaking up families and

causing the cycles of poverty and pathologies and we have to look at it, as a prohibition problem. >> well, to the extent that the dreamers are beginning to create pressure for congress, it is because they borrowed another thing from a different movement, and not only the kids' part of the civil rights movement, but the coming out of the closet part of the lgbt movement saying i'm notes a shamed to be undocumented, but this is how i am contributing. so what does media or journalism do as part of the social action. >> when i am talking to the dreamers or the activists in arizona what is clear to me is that the immigrant rights movement, the push for reform has actually never been stronger than it is now. it is precisely because these dreamers are now organizing all over the country. people have organized in remarkable way to push back against the arizona-type laws and also to push back against

the obama's deportation policies that have removed hundreds of thousands of people. so you have a remarkable, and very young network of grass roots organizers who know how to use social media and know how to tell the stories in ways that are compelling and pushing on congress and the administration to make change. i think that the power of the grass roots in this context is enormous right now, and it is a response to really, you know, ip credibly damaging policies. >> thank you,set wessler and matt welsh, and coming up next, the emancipation proclamation, and 150 years later, the surprising things that you don't know about the historic document when we come back. [ male announcer ] wouldn't it be cool if we took the already great sentra apart and completely reimagined it? ...with best-in-class combined mpg... and more interior room than corolla and civic? ...and a technology suite with bluetooth, navigation and other handy stuff?

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new year's day marked more than the beginning of 2013, it was also the 150th anniversary of a milestone in our nation's history. the dawn of that day in 1863 for more than 3 million enslaved people in a then-divided america brought the end of life as property and the beginning of a new existence as free men, women and children. on december 31st, 1862 african-americans and the abolitionist allies gathered together to pray and to watch and to wait for the coming of the new day on january 1st when president abraham lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation. it would take another two years and the passage of amendment 13 before slavery was abolished, but after years of deliverance aft

after c african americans heard the shall be tree -- free. and now in praise, an ses scest came together to commemorate the occasion by prayer. and there is also a retrospective collection called emancipation. and the director of the shaumberg center is my guest here. khalil, thank you for coming. >> thank you, melissa. >> for those who don't know what the emancipation proclamation is, and just taught that lincoln freed the slaves, what did the emancipation proclamation do and not do? >> it freed 3 million enslaved people from all of the confederate states that left out approximately 800,000 who were absolu absolutely not free under any circumstances in four border

states from missouri to kentucky to maryland and delaware. also excluded the entire state of tennessee. so, it was the prince pple military order, and lincoln's use of the war powers provision to essentially strip the confederacy of enslaved people as laborers, as the backbone of holding up the infrastructure of the south, and indeed, prosecuting the war, and made possible the eventual end of slavery, sfwlu a lot that hapbut happened in between. >> that strategic point is so critical, because the lincoln who we often think of and i still sort of get teary eyed at the lincoln memorial, and we have emotions there. >> and it is more than a marble structure. >> and martin luther king, and mary anderson and that sort of thing, but it was strategic rather than principled in some really critical ways, and that

is why it is the rebellious states and not the border states. >> yes, absolutely it was strategic, but one of the things that is important is from the very beginning as a senatorial candidate, as a presidential candidate, lincoln was in fact committed to the end of slavery as a principled matter and made it very clear that his personal aversion to the institution of slavery as a kind of abomination to the world, and to what democracy and liberty stood for was not his constitutional mandate or his political one. and the complications of strategy have to do with saving the union and preserving the union to the point of a military victo victory. so it gets really complicated, and in some ways it is understandable why there is so much misinformation. >> well, if you were one of the 1.2 million-plus human beings caught in the intergenerational chattel bondage, the motivations

of lincoln are probably less important than the actual facts of the emancipation proclamation, itself. n now, talk to me about the reparations, and bringing to the congress again this year, what he calls the reparations of the lincoln bill, and talk about the slavers and the slaveholders. >> so compensation right up until the final act of the january 1 emancipation proclamation, because there was a september 22nd preliminary emancipation which gave a mandate to lay down the arms or your slaves will be free. and up to the january 31st deadline, lincoln was doing the back door deals with

congresspeople essentially trying to off the border states various and graduate and compensated emancipation plans. and he also spent as much as $250,000 developing a potential colony for enslaved people in haiti. so money in this regard was considered a carrot or olive br branch to those who were supporting the union, be but very much invested in slavery, and if he could use the federal treasury to bribe the arms to be laid down, he would absolutely do it. >> i want you to can continue this history lesson with the panel, and talk about the schomberg exhibit, and the fact that black bodies were commod y commodities and had value that you could determine and the idea of paying back. >> and a quick point on that, and you think about the

reparations day in the contemporary moment which many people think is fanciful or absurd, and if you take the value of slaves in 1860, it exceeded the entire bankk industry. the entire railroad industry which was the internet age. if you could take all of the commerce of our internet age, and translate it back to the rail road period as well as all of the manufacturing in the country, that is how valuable slavery was and not just in the united states, but in the western world. >> so that is what makes america economically what she becomes. >> yes. >> and yet it was human people, and humans and not slaves, but enslaved people. up next, president obama and his lincoln moment. a febreze experiment. to prove febreze can keep this car fresh, we loaded it with fast food, sweaty hockey gear, and a smelly dog cage. and parked it at a mall. in texas. for two days.

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in the shadow of the old state capitol where lincoln

called upon a house divided to stand together where common hopes and common dreams still live, i stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the united states of america. >> that was president barack obama six years ago when he first embarked on the road to the white house, invoking the legacy of the man in whose foot stoeps he would eventually follow. president obama made that announcement in springfield, illinois, the very site of abraham lincoln's condemnation of slavery where lincoln declared that a house divided against itself cannot stand. now, of course, barack obama is not abraham lincoln, but as we have seen through the fiscal cliff negotiations, he is certain certainly a president presiding over an america with a divided house. still with me is dr. khalil muhammad, and jamal simmons and

carmen wong ulrich, and senator kyrsten sinema. so we have had the lincoln film and the new django film and both of them were problematic for me in the way that they reduce the age agency of the enslaved people themselves and reduced the role that african-americans themselves played in the freedom struggle. is there something that as we are looking at the 150th of the emancipation proclamation to give us a chance to revisit it? >> absolutely. because partly as you said earlier, we don't know much about it collectively as a society. every generation that passes over the course of the 21st century loses a little bit of the historical memory and it is not about accident. the southern pov ti law center did a report pointing out that even the civil rights movement is not taught in a vast majority

of the states. it is not a surprise that in this moment we have a collective amnesia and left with the top-down political narratives that shape our collective consciousness which belie essentially the reality of what happens on the ground. >> tell us what you are doing at schomberg, and tell us about what that is about? it is a depiction of real black people -- >> not ones made up by quinton tarantino? >> no sh, tony curbner, and the shaped the landscape of what was possible in america, and including frederick douglass who, ha-ha, he was the head negro in charge and the head black abolitionist and every part a bit of the landscape that lincoln was respond iing to. >> well, i saw "django" and i have to say as grotesque as it was, something that hit me as someone who was raised on

"roots" and watching it on tv. >> oh, lord. >> exactly, and my ancestors come from the dominican and they were slaves, but it has been so long that we have had a look at the reality of slavery and how it functioned, that it reminded me that it was a business and showed big owners of slave traders and the different roles that african-americans had with and in slavery and with whether it was trading the slaves themselves or like the samuel l. jackson character and it was not the best movie, not at all, but i was struck of being remind and growing up in the '70s we were reminded of this history much, much, much more of course, because it was closer, but what do our kids have today and not that they should see the movie, but what else is there and who else is there going to make this a reality now that we have a black president, let's not forget this. >> yes. >> and you are talking about the agency, and it is important to remember talking about lincoln and the work that the white

abolitionist did, and africans who spent their entire time here resisting in every way they could possible. there was cultural resistance, and naming ceremonies and doing thi things in culture, and there was sabotaging the equipment they were using and sick days and poisoning the masters and all sorts of things, and fleeing, and sojourner truth and others, and whatever ways they could find to do it, they were trying to claim some of it, some bit of man and womanhood to hold on to, and because of particularly the cultural resistance, they passed a lot of those things down to the current generation of afric african-americans that many of us don't realize come from the long history that we have here. >> it is part of the amazing part of the emancipation proclamation story and part of the reason that lincoln had to deal with it is because enslaved people were stealing themselves, and they had taken themselves behind enemy lines and as you pointed out khalil, property, and value and when you took

yourself away from the confedera confederacy, you were stealing the wealth of the confederacy and lincoln was left to talk about it. this is not the moment of the civil war, but it does feel as though the president in certain ways as he tries to channel lincoln is trying to think about the decisions between on the one hand fighting the other side and on the other hand trying to find the common ground with the other side. known is suggesting that we are about to go into a civil war, kyrsten, but is there a lesson to take from it? is. >> well, i saw "lincoln" not once, but twice, because i was struck with the movie with a heavy heart. i saw both times before my swearing n and each time as i left i thought to myself, i wonder, i hope that our congress can rise up and meet the challenges that we face. very, very different challenges. >> the thaddeus stevens.

>> can we, can we as a body with the great divisions, and as we saw in "lincoln" divisions within one party which we experience right now in congress, and can we, too, come together to overcome to challenges that we face, again, of a very different nature and can we do this? what i loved after watching the film, and reading the "rival" think that we can, with but the question is do we want to? that is the challenge that we face, and throughout the country's history and as messy as the democracy is and as much as it is designed to create this back and forth gridlock and toughness before you make the massive changes w we have risen to the challenge. our country has risen to the challenge, and not always on time, but we have always risen, so i think that the question before this congress, and this is a moment in our lifetimes will we rise again? >> i love that, congresswoman, that having grown up in charlottesville, virginia, truly an optimist about the american

project at the core. so we will talk more in a moment, but first, it is time for a preview with alex vwitt. >> hello, and glad to be with you again. some are kaling for a partial shutdown there in washington. and denver is doing everything right that d.c. is not. the mayor will join me with advice. and newly revealed fbi files show marilyn monroe's connections to communism, and i will talk to the agency who got these files published. and al roker will talk about the valuable advice he got from willard scott before taking over, and his perspective on global warming. back to you. >> thank you, alex. and and up next, our foot soldier. ace. face it with puffs ultra soft & strong. puffs has soft, air-fluffed pillows for 40% more cushiony thickness. face every day with puffs softness.

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i want to take you to missouri.

in the 2010 census it registered a population of 9,515 residents. it's the kind of the place where the mayor writes a monthly report for the town website that thanks the park staff by name for decorating the town square for christmas. but when this week's "foot soldier" first came to this town, it wasn't to see the annual festival of lights. in may of 2009 jason benson was arrested for driving drunk and jailed and he was an alcoholic and homeless. when his car was impounded, he no longer had a place to live because he'd been living out of his car. here he was in little town where he'd never been, where he knew no one, he had no place to stay. a local church secured a hotel room for jason and it was in those days when the spirit of our big town touched him. jason told us that he realized his life of self-indull jenls was really just leading to self-destruction, so instead of just cleaning up and clearing out, jason decided to open a

homeless center in this underserved rural community. working with an established local community nonprofit leader, jason was able to secure 501-c-3 status for the shelter, and after his dui arrest he opened the doors to the s.a.l.t. organization, an emergency overnight center. it stands for simply achieving life's triumphs. since their opening it has expanded to two buildings. both centers have a shower, they have a kitchen. they have bedding and hygiene products, nurses from nearby hospitals volunteer and provide basic first aid and medical care and referrals. s.a.l.t. is the only homeless shelter in the surrounding 15 ruralcounties. they are open to everyone.

regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. often the counties look idyllic we believe they are immune to the problems facing cities. jason said the rural homeless are the hidden homeless because no one wants to acknowledge the issue. this problem was not hidden to jason because he had lived it. for opening the doors of life's triumphs to the hidden homeless in our rural counties, he's our foot soldier of the week and you can read more about jason on our website. peggy and laura from polo, missouri, nominated jason. if you know a foot soldier, send us your nomination on our facebook page. and that's our show for today. thank you to khalil and carmen, jamal and especially congresswoman sinema, thank you for watching. i'll see you at 10:00 a.m. eastern, and tomorrow we'll bring you a story that could change everything you think you know about the changing crime rates in our country. you will be amazed when you hear

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hello, everyone, we're approaching high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." round two and a government shutdown looming? another fight over potential cabinet appointments. tsunami averted. what could be the worst flu season in decades. why lance armstrong might admit to doping. details on all those stories throughout the hour. but first -- >> one thing i will not compromise over is whether or not congress should pay the tab for a bill they've already racked up. if congress refuses to get -- >> that's the president, of

course, as we go to front page politics. new today the president is tackling the next battle with republicans, in today's weekly address, the debt ceiling. now, here's the president -- >> one thing i will not compromise over is whether or not congress should pay the tab for a bill they've already racked up. if congress refuses to give the united states the ability to pay their bills on time the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastroph catastrophic. john boehner told members of his gop congress on friday he plans to use the upcoming watt battle as leverage for more spending cuts. chuck todd reports that insiders have been told to prepare for chuck hagel's nomination for defense secretary as possibly as early as monday. a white house spokesperson said the president has not made a final decision yet. and former arizona congresswoman gabrielle giffords spent time in newtown, connecticut, she met with victims and families of the sanity hook elementary school

shooting. gifford's survived being shot at a campaign rally in tucson, arizona. the president and the first family are wrapping up their vacation in hawaii. they'll leave his native state tonight. when he arrives in washington he's got a busy week ahead of imwhich includes signing the $9.7 billion hurricane sandy relief bill passed by congress yesterday. let's go to kristen welker who has been traveling with the president in honolulu. another good day to you. having seen you in the early morning hours today. what was the president's reaction, kristen, to the passing of this scaled-down version of the relief bill? >> reporter: well, the president is basically sending the message he's pleased that congress got part of the bill passed but he's also trying to put a lot of pressure on them to make sure they pass the remaining $51 billion portion of the bill, of course, that is the bulk of the aid that will be going to victims of hurricane sandy, lawmakers in that region have been very adamant that the money is necessary to help all those folks who are impacted rebuild their lives and get back on